title: A microscopic model of current-induced switching of magnetization.
abstract: The behaviour of the magnetization in a ferromagnetic metal/nonmagnetic insulator/ferromagnetic metal/paramagnetic metal tunnel junction is studied, using the nonequilibrium Keldysh formalism. The two ferromagnets are described using the single-band Hubbard model. The left one is treated in the mean field approximation and the right ferromagnet within a (nonequilibrium) spectral density approach which takes interactions beyond the mean field into account. When a voltage is applied to the junction we observe a change of the relative orientation of the two magnetizations, which can be switched from parallel to antiparallel alignment and vice versa. This switching appears in a self-consistent way, so there is no need to use half-classical methods like the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation one. The dependence of the critical voltage at which the magnetization changes its sign on the model parameters can be studied in a systematic way.
authors.affiliation: Festkörpertheorie, Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Newtonstrasse 15, 12489 Berlin, Germany. niko.sandschneider@physik.hu-berlin.de
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sandschneider
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Nolting